Manny's 2nd slam of '17 fuels O's 4-HR rout

August 15th, 2017

SEATTLE -- Manny Machado's grand slam led a four-homer attack as the Orioles blasted the Mariners, 11-3, on Monday night to pull within two games of the second Wild Card spot in the American League.
, and former Mariner Seth Smith also homered to make an easy winner of , who continued his strong second half by allowing two runs and six hits over seven innings in hiking his record to 9-8 with a 5.08 ERA.
Grand slams mean 40% off pizza
Baltimore evened its record at 4-4 on its 10-game West Coast road trip and now sits at 59-60. The Mariners (59-61) lost their fifth in a row and dropped 2 1/2 back of the idle Angels in the chase for the AL's final playoff berth.

"I think we're playing our best baseball right now," Gausman said. "Really since the break, I think we've been playing pretty well. Obviously Beckham has been a huge pickup for us and we've had some guys step up, and also some guys that are having career years this year like [Jonathan] Schoop and obviously Mancini has been huge for us. I think if our starting staff can do what we've been doing lately ... there's no reason why we can't be in the hunt."
hit his 29th homer of the season and increased his AL-leading RBI total to 95, while Mike Zunino also went deep for Seattle. But the Mariners were no match for an Orioles team that racked up 16 hits while snapping a six-game losing streak at Safeco Field dating back to August 2015. Beckham and Chris Davis each had three hits.

, acquired by the Mariners in a trade for Smith in January, gave up eight runs on nine hits in four-plus innings as he fell to 5-8 with a 5.84 ERA. Smith went 2-for-4 for Baltimore and is hitting .273 with 12 homers and 28 RBIs.
"His stuff velocity-wise was as good a fastball as we've seen in a while, but sometimes he was overthrowing," Mariners manager Scott Servais said of Gallardo. "We saw a lot of hard stuff, but we didn't see the back and forth with the curveball and changeup. It was predominantly all hard and they got on it. They know him very well and he wanted to show them better, but sometimes you get a little too juiced up and the ball gets up and starts going in bad places."
MOMENTS THAT MATTERED
Starting off right:
Beckham wasted no time setting the tone for the Orioles as he knocked Gallardo's first pitch over the fence in right-center for his 16th homer of the year and fourth since being acquired from the Rays on July 31. Beckham got hold of a 91-mph fastball and drove it a projected 365 feet to the opposite field, according to Statcast™. The 27-year-old shortstop has been on quite a roll for his new club, batting .500 (29-for-58) with seven doubles and two triples in addition to the four home runs, along with 13 RBIs in his first 14 games for Baltimore.

"Maybe we need to start throwing a few more breaking balls on the first pitch because they are coming out swinging and we have left balls up in the middle of the plate, which is obviously a great pitch to hit," said Servais after his Mariners gave up their 12th leadoff homer of the season.
Another Manny slam: The Orioles jumped all over Gallardo in the six-run second and Machado applied the decisive blow with his grand slam to left-center, a majestic 430-foot shot over the out-of-town scoreboard. It was Machado's sixth career slam and fifth in the past two years, which is the most in the Majors in that span. He now has 20 RBIs over his past 16 games, including his other slam this season a week ago against the Angels. Gallardo also gave up back-to-back doubles to and Davis among the six hits allowed in a 50-pitch inning.
"You look at where he is statistically, and where he was, it just tells you a lot about how he's been grinding," Orioles manager Buck Showalter said.
QUOTABLE
"I told him when I took him out of the game, that's the ballgame. You won the ballgame in the bottom of the first. A lot happened between then and the end, but that was huge. He just got back on the mound, and collected himself and try and minimize the damage and get us back in the dugout. That was pretty cool" -- Showalter on Gausman limiting the damage to one run in the first inning after surrendering hits to his first three batters

"I look where we're at right now and where we were at six days ago and it's like, wow, you can't believe it's the same club. But it is baseball and it will turn around and we'll get it going back in the right direction. But it needs to start happening pretty soon." -- Servais

SOUND SMART WITH YOUR FRIENDS
Cruz's homer was his fifth in the past six games for Seattle and ninth in his last 14. His nine home runs since July 3 ties of the Marlins for the most in the Majors in that span.
went 2-for-4 to reach 1,575 career hits, which put him into fifth place on the Orioles' all-time hit list.

WHAT'S NEXT
Orioles: takes on his former team at Safeco Field for the first time since Seattle traded him at last year's non-waiver Trade Deadline. Miley (6-9, 5.19 ERA) boasts a 2.12 ERA and nine strikeouts per nine innings in his last three starts. First pitch is at 10:10 p.m. ET
Mariners: Left-hander will be added to the roster and make Tuesday's 7:10 p.m. PT start against the Orioles in place of , who went on the DL last week. The 31-year-old was acquired from the Braves on Friday after going 12-3 with a 2.61 ERA for Triple-A Gwinnett.
Watch every out-of-market regular-season game live on MLB.TV.